February 11, 2010
Enviros urge fixing, not nixing Delaware deposit law
Officials with the Container Recycling Institute have joined forces with Delaware-based environmental groups, such as the Surfrider Foundation's Delaware Chapter, to push the importance of Delaware's beverage container redemption program, in hopes of persuading Governor Jack Markell to alter his plans of doing away with the state's 28-year-old system.
At the beginning of the year, Governor Markell announced a plan to eliminate Delaware's refundable nickel deposit on beverage containers, instead replacing it with a non-refundable tax that would go toward progressing curbside recycling, in hopes of improving local recycling rates. However, CRI officials have stated that such a plan could actually hurt recycling, burdening consumers and taxpayers, and driving up costs and greenhouse gas emissions for processors and manufacturers. Many states use unredeemed deposits to fund curbside recycling or environmental programs.
"The alternative to this plan, and the answer to increasing the recycling of Delaware's beverage containers, would be to expand the deposit to include all types of beverages and containers," says CRI Executive Director Susan Collins.
According to CRI statistics, the Blue Hen State's current deposit system only covers soda and beer in glass and plastic bottles, which likens to only about 19 percent of the total beverages sold in state — beverages sold in aluminum cans are not covered under the state program. Reports show that aluminum cans can equate to as much as 50 percent of a redemption program's total volume.
According to Collins, if the state was to expand its deposit program, and lawmakers voted in favor of Delaware keeping the unredeemed deposits, the expanded deposit program would not only increase beverage container recycling in the state, but it would also provide more funding than the proposed curbside-recycling tax on the 19 percent of containers currently being redeemed CRI estimates between $7-9 million per year in unredeemed deposits versus $4-6 million through the proposed curbside tax.
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